Sometimes, you need to let the Big Bad have it right where it hurts. Sometimes, you just gotta burn that smirk off of The Dragon's face in the most direct and painful manner possible. Sometimes, The Hero deserves to know just how powerful you are when you're Drunk on the Dark Side.

Examples

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Anime & Manga

This is one of the Signature Moves of the School of Touhou Fuhai (The Undefeated of The East) in G Gundam, represented by protagonist Domon's Shining and God Finger attacks and Master Asia's Darkness Finger. The novelization explains its function and origin a bit, saying that it was made to adhere to Buddhist tenets of Thou Shalt Not Kill, and works by sending ki from the palm through the three central fingers and into an opponent's head, where it shorts out their motor functions and disables themnote And yes, this means it can be used outside of Gundams. It even get two Shout Outs in its franchise:

In-universe it's based on the Astray Red Frame, which can channel its battery power through its handplugs, generating a "lightning ball". In his first battle with Gold Frame, Lowe uses a super-charged version that blows up Gold's head, but also takes out Red's right arm.

Though Gundam Build Fighters Try normally averts this (since The Hero's Gundam uses an entirely different fighting style), there have been two instances of this type of attack: in episode 4 he uses the Musha Godmaru (a Super-Deformed, samurai-styled God Gundam) and performs its version of the God Finger, and in episode 20 during his showdown with his sempai-slash-Cool Big Bro, he ends the fight with this kind of attack.

Guts from Berserk does this to a scummy knight of the Holy Chain during the "Retribution" arc, actually lifting him off the ground by his face despite his heavy suit of armor. After interrogating him, he then throws the knight at a horse-riding enemy, still gripping him by the face.

Kallen's Guren Mk-II and its dervatives from Code Geass come equipped with a right-handed Radiant Wave Surger which she uses to blow up any Knightmare Frame in contact. There's a reason why people call her the daughter of Domon.

Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist kills his victims in this manner; he grabs them by the head and makes their bodies disintegrate. Somewhat justified in context, however, as the arm he uses is covered in alchemic symbology tattoos that is used to "deconstruct" the matter of an object (or creature), but because it is alchemy-based he can only use it on things that he understands at least some of the material makeup of, and as his religious faith forbids the study and practice of alchemy, he is only able to use it in the most, well, direct manner.

This is how Ed beats Pride: by grabbing his face, physically and metaphysically, and ripping his soul out of his body.

The Big O: The eponymous mecha's signature attack (Sudden Impact) can work like this by it grabbing an opponent's head and retracting the pressurized pistons inside the arms and subsequently releasing them For Massive Damage.

Grimmjow Jaggerjack, of Bleach, kept trying to use this as a finisher, unleashing his Cero blast at point blank range against Ichigo and Rukia; but a third party kept jumping in and interrupting him. By the time he does catch Ichigo with one of these, he's taken enough levels in badass to shrug it off without any real harm.

Ichigo himself does this to Aizen before literally pulling him across a whole town in a matter of seconds.

Miss Monday attempts to punch Zoro's face into the ground at one point. He is completely unfazed, and responds by casually pulling this on her until she passes out.

During the Water 7 arc, Blueno attempts this on Franky, unfortunately for him he only succeeds in pissing him off and prompting Franky to give a much more effective Facepalm Of Doomright back at him.

Whitebeard did the same thing at several points, but using his Quake Quake powers, resulting in a mini earthquake limited to the victim's head. Needless to say, nobody really got back up from that one.

The first thing that Bellamy is shown doing post-timeskip is crushing a man's skull with one hand.

Sabo, after proving himself to be alive after all, proves his strength by taking out a vice-admiral by crushing his head, complete with the iron mask he was wearing.

Baccano!, in which the immortals, most notably Szilard, "consume" one another by placing their right palm on someone's forehead and essentially vacuuming up their entire body in an exceptionally grisly manner...

In Hellsing, Seras gives one to Zorin Blitz during their fight, intending to crush her face. Zorin retaliates by giving a Face Palm Of Doom of her own, attempting to Mind Rape Seras. This totally backfires, allowing Seras to move ahead with her previous plan, albeit with the addition of utilising a wall as a kind of makeshift cheese grater. Suffice to say the results are quite messy.

Goku does the top of the head variation during his fight with Kid Buu. He combines it with a ki attack that goes right through the Planet of the Kais.

Syn Shenron, in Tenkaichi, grabs people by picking them up by the face and unleashing a volley of ki blasts straight into the face of whichever unlucky schmuck stupid enough to challenge him.

In Session #5 of Cowboy Bebop, "Ballad of Fallen Angels", Vicious does this to Spike after the latter disarmed him with a bullet in the shoulder (thus using his still good arm). And then Vicious use this grip to throw Spike through a stained glass window.

Happens in a flashback in Tiger & Bunny when a young Yuri Petrov activates his NEXT power and sets his father's hand alight. Rather than screaming in pain, his dad (who arguably deserved it, incidentally) starts to laugh and puts his hand over his son's face, leaving a massive palm-shaped burn. This is not enough to save him, however.

In the second Fatal Fury OVA, Terry has a nightmare of Krauser doing this to him.

Obito, from Naruto, uses this against the Edo-Tensei Third Hokage after having absorbed the Juubi, by latching his hand onto his face and releasing a black omni-element material through his hand as a spear. It obliterates the Third's entire upper body. He later attempts to use it on Sasuke and Naruto but is saved by Minato and Naruto's quick thinking.

Spider-Manantihero Kaine uses this as his preferred method of murder, the "Mark of Kaine". He grabs the poor victim's face, then rips it off, leaving them dead and with a gruesome handprint as a souvenir. Ouch.

In the recent Amazing Spider-Man story arc Grim Hunt, Peter does something similar to one of the villain that was dogging him through most of the arc. Fittingly, it was to avenge Kaine, who was dead. Again. He got better.

In a Star Wars novella, a condescending hotel clerk offended a highly intelligent droid working for a powerful Dark Jedi. The droid asked the man to lean closer because he couldn't hear him, then grabbed his face and slowly crushed it.

The clawhold submission, commonly called the Iron Claw, popularized among fans of the USA by the Von Erich Family.

Devil Masami liked to smother AJW rookies by clamping her hands over their noses and mouths, then bending their head/neck. Face two palms of doom?

The STO is a move where you put the joint between you bicep and forearm into the opponents neck, sweep a leg and pin him. NJPW rookie Kenzo Suzuki simply grabs the other guy's face and then sweeps the leg.

One of Canadian Mafia Princess Tiffany's signature moves was to apply a reverse Indian death lock, grab the side of her opponent's head and then cover their nose and mouth with her other hand.

WWE sometimes plays this trope for laughs, such as when The Big Show once eliminated a jobber from the Royal Rumble by facepalm-shoving him backwards over the ropes.

Since his late 2011 return, Kane has added this to his arsenal, clamping his hand over his foe's nose and mouth to suffocate them into unconsciousness. This even works on John Cena.

Video Games

Mega Man X: According to the Day of Sigma OVA, Sigma gets his signature scars on his eyes when X pulls off of these off on him. It should be noted that X's attack looks a lot like Shining Finger, due to X being voiced by Domon Kashu's dub actor at the time.

From Bloody Roar (At least in the Primal Fury installment), one of Gado's Beast Drives is exactly this. He grabs his opponent by the face and lifts them into the air before letting off a one-handed Kamehame Hadoken and slamming them head-first into the ground.

Though, in some games, if the oppononent blocks it the effects are istantly reversed. Yes, this means that if the opponent reverses the healing version, he heals you.

In some of the Soul series games, Asteroth was able to grab a prone opponent by the face, squeeze their head, then stand them upright. The attack was pretty weak, but it prevented your opponent from getting a wake-up attack.

Ganondorf's side-B special move in Super Smash Bros. Brawl utilizes this. In addition to the "energy attack" part of this trope, he also literally picks his opponent off the ground by the face before exploding their face with dark fire (if the two of them are on the ground), or grabs their face and them slams them back down into the ground (if done in the air) Ouch.

One of Testament's throwing moves in Guilty Gear is to grab his opponent's face and impale the victim with spikes extending from his palm.

Seth's forward throw does this as well, picking the opponent up by the face, and smashing them face first with a heel kick.

Happens at the end of Devil May Cry 4. Except instead of grabbing the face of the False Savior and then releasing the energy, Nero uses the Devil Bringer to project an even bigger hand which is closer to the Savior's scale. Then he just crushes its face.

Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core has Genesis do this to Angeal and set off a point blank magical explosion. It seems to only knock him out for a minute, as he turns up soon after looking no worse for wear.

Dissidia: Final Fantasy has a pretty impressive one in Jecht's "Triumphant Grasp" HP attack (known as"Jecht Finger" in Japan). He charges, ON FIRE, down at you, GRABS. YOUR. FACE, and then causes an explosion in his hand. This causes him to shake out his hand from the pain, and this is the guy who kicks a meteor into your face and can plant his huge sword half-way into the ground with one hand!

Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep: Master Xehanort does a back-of-the-head version of this to Ventus at one point. In the CG version of that scene, he grips Ven's head hard enough to crack his whole helmet before freezing and dropping him to the ground. Ouch.

He'll also rarely try it on you while you're fighting him with Terra, though you can escape with button mashing before you get frozen.

In Resident Evil 4's Separate Ways campaign, one of Saddler's attacks involves grabbing Ada's face and slamming her head into the ground. Fail the Quick Time Event, and it crushes her skull.

The last scene of the prologue in .hack//GU//rebirth features not-Tri-edge doing this to the main character during their curb stomp battle, complete with Haseo's first-person view of it. [1]

One of Chuck Greene's special moves in Dead Rising 2 can involve this. Chuck grabs a zombie's head (whether it's a Face Palm of Doom or not depends on whether the zombie is facing Chuck) and viciously slams its head into a nearby surface, usually resulting in Your Head Asplode.

Occurs in Goblins, and is one of the first warnings that things are going to get serious. A cleric grabs a goblin by the face and casts the level 1 spell Inflict Light Wounds. The results are not pretty...

In There Will Be Brawl Ganondorf does this to Link, by ramming his arm through Zelda as she went to protect him, and explodes Link's head while Link was at full health. Quite a Heel Face Door Slam.

In RWBY, this is how the fight between Weiss and the White Fang Lieutenant ends. He grabs her by the face and slams her head into the ground hard enough to knock her clean out. Then, still holding her face, he throws her up in the air and smashes her through to the next train compartment with his chainsaw. What a brute.

Western Animation

In Star Wars: Clone Wars, General Grievous uses a variation where he grabs an opponent's head with his clawed foot, smashes it into the ground and then throws the corpse into the ceiling.

In Teen Titans, Pantha has a move called "Pantha's Claw" that leaves a red burn on the victim's face.

In the Grand Finale of Superman: The Animated Series, Superman wins the climactic fight against Darkseid using this move defensively: while Darkseid is charging his Omega Effect, Superman holds his hands to Darkseid's eyes, causing a massive explosion which blackens his eyes and opens up massive, red-glowing wounds on his face. (As his next appearance in The DCAU would show, they scarred permanently.) And Darkseid is a god. Pretty good move, that.

Interestingly, the exact same thing with the roles reversed happens in Superman/Batman: Apocalypse. Superman attempts heat vision at point-blank range only for Darkseid to facepalm him. Cue Disco-Ball-of-Lasery-Doom effect.

In the Avatar: The Last Airbender episode "Zuko Alone," when Zuko is fighting the thuggish soldiers. He knocks one of the soldiers' weapon out of the way and then grabs his forehead and knocks him down.

Also, although there was a Gory Discretion Shot, it's very likely that this is how Ozai gave Zuko his scar. Examine it closely, and the burn is a clear impression of a hand.

In Legend Of Korra, Amon takes people's bending away by grabbing their foreheads.

There is an eye gouging technique which involves placing the palm on the forehead to gain leverage, and ramming the thumb into the above mentioned target. Its a fairly dirty move, but there is no denying it gets results when things deteriorate that far.

Also a method of throwing your opponent to the ground in Sambo, by pressing the base of your fingers onto your opponent's nose from beneath.

Jujitsu and the related disciplines have a throw which consists of placing your hand on your opponent's face, rotating the head back, and pushing down. It's amazingly effective on most people and looks practically effortless.

Some monkey-influenced styles of Kung Fu and Silat go one step further by having you continue the Face Palm Of Doom all the way to the floor and bouncing your victim's head off whatever surface happens to be avaliable - such as concrete, tarmac, or your own knee.

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